“Not this again,” Dixon said. “I thought we’re professional women who are proud of our accomplishments and don’t have to resort to sleeping around and behaving like sluts to get where we’ve gotten. We’ve earned it on merit.”
“Yeah. We are. And we did. But we need to use all assets at our disposal. And let’s face it, you have nice assets. Honestly, I’m freaking jealous. Now lose the jacket.”
Dixon rolled her eyes, then did as Vail requested.
As Dixon was tossing it into the backseat, a text arrived from Burden:
rumors right. dui ’09 and dom vio this year. in custody battle over 9 & 13 yo boys. not hard to guess job’s in jeopardy. complaints never made public.
Vail read the info to Dixon, and then they walked through the Register’s front doors. They both badged the receptionist, who sat behind bulletproof glass, with surveillance cameras trained on them fore and aft.
“Guess it’s dangerous being a reporter these days,” Dixon quipped. “Tight security.”
Vail covered her eyes in mock concern. She gestured at Dixon’s detective’s shield. “Jesus, Roxx. Scuff it up or something. It’s so shiny and new, you nearly blinded me with the reflection.”
“I’m very proud of this hunk of metal.”
“You should be. But it’s so pristine it makes you look like a rookie.”
Dixon pawed the mirrored surface, covering it with fingerprints. “There. Happy?”
Vail playfully revealed one eye, then the other. “Much better.”
“You can go on up,” the receptionist said, shoving two visitor tags into the pass-through slot. “Third floor.”
They clipped the laminated cards, which bore a large red V, onto their belts, and then turned toward the elevator. But as the doors opened and revealed a tiny car, Vail turned away. “Stairs?”
“It’s only three floors,” Dixon said.
“I don’t want to tempt fate. It hits at inopportune times.”
They ran up the three flights, then exited at the newsroom floor where a man of about sixty was standing, waiting for the elevator doors to part.
“Just a guess,” Vail said. “Mr. Scheer?”
The man turned and his eyes immediately found Roxxann Dixon as if his pupils were made of iron and Dixon had a magnet embedded beneath her chest.
That’s it. Look. Enjoy. Then tell us what we want to know.
“Yes.” He extended a hand, but his gaze slid left and right, from Dixon to Vail…but they always came back to Dixon.
“We have some questions for you,” Vail said.
Scheer pulled his eyes over to Vail. “Come on back to my cubicle.” He led them through a maze of low-walled dividers. Computer screens, stacks of papers, and file folders covered all available horizontal surfaces. The workspaces looked similar, the only variations being how neatly the materials were stacked, and how many photos the reporters and columnists had pinned to their walls.
Scheer stole two rolling chairs from adjacent, abandoned cubicles and moved them over to his workspace. Vail and Dixon took seats as Scheer fussed with clearing a stack of papers from his workspace.
Vail scanned the photos on display: one of a boy and a young teen, another of Scheer and the same children-presumably his sons-and pictures of what looked like his parents and maybe a sister. Off to the side, there was a snapshot of Scheer dressed in an Elvis costume at some kind of holiday party. There were no pictures of his wife.
Dixon elbowed Vail and nodded at a Tribune article pinned to his wall. A handwritten note scrawled below it read, “Wrong again, asshole. Fuck you.” Off to the right, two bullet casings hung in a Ziploc bag, skewered by pushpins.
Vail and Dixon shared a perturbed look.
“What can I help you with?” Scheer asked.
Vail wiggled a finger at his wall. “What’s up with that?”
Scheer swung his head over. “The article or the casings?”
“Both,” Dixon said.
“We get those kinds of notes and emails literally every week, and most of us keep a few hanging around the office as examples of how batshit the readers can be.”
“Batshit,” Vail repeated.
“And those bullets,” he said, waving a hand in their direction, “are from a murder in the Tenderloin. Transit reporters have toy trains on their desks, cop reporters have toy cop cars. I’ve got those bullets-and the Orgy Room key from the Mustang Ranch.” He opened a drawer and pushed a few items aside. “It’s here somewhere… Anyway, they’re mementos of the stories I’ve written.” He shoved the drawer closed. “Just a guess here, but you didn’t come over to discuss my office décor.”
“We saw your article this morning on the case you’ve dubbed the ‘Bay Killer,’” Vail said.
Scheer moved back in his seat. A subconscious but telling action. “Did you like it?”
“Can’t say we did,” Vail said. “See, you printed details about the case that no one knows. And that concerns us.”
Dixon added, “If you can just tell us where you got some of that information, we’ll be out of your hair.” She sat up straight, bringing her shoulders back.
Scheer noticed. He turned his head toward Vail, but his eyes followed a split second later. “I can’t-I can’t disclose my sources. I’m sorry.”
“We figured you’d say that,” Vail said.
“But see, what you did, well, it’s irresponsible,” Dixon said, maintaining a pleasing and reasonable tone. “Because you printed some things that weren’t right. And strategically, the things you wrote were downright dangerous. It’s putting the lives of a lot of elderly women in the city at extreme risk. And we certainly don’t want to do that-and I’m sure you don’t want to, either.”
“What can I do about that? I’m sorry if that’s what happened. But I can’t retract the article. What’s done is done. You can’t unring-”
“Yeah,” Vail said. “The bell. We know. But I’m gonna be blunt with you. We have a hole at the department. We need to plug that hole before more information finds its way into other people’s hands. Unscrupulous hands.”
Scheer shifted in his seat. “Well, I-I don’t want anything bad to happen, but I’ve got a job to do, and my job is to find credible information on a case and report on it. And since you’re here, I’ve obviously found credible information.”
“We’ve all got jobs to do,” Vail said. “And my job is to make sure more elderly women and men don’t get killed. Tortured. Raped. And sodomized.”
“I understand. But-”
“Is that your parents?” Vail asked. She pointed to the photo.
Scheer did not turn around. His face hardened. “Get to the point.”
“They’re around the age of the couples who’ve been murdered. Would you like to walk into a crime scene tomorrow and find your mother tortured, raped, and sodomized? As you were so apt to point out in your article, the killer uses an umbrella, and he shoves it up the woman’s rectum. Very hard. He tears her up inside. I don’t think I have to tell you it’s a very, very unpleasant death.”